Digital Photo Professional VERY slow when set to Use Graphics Processor for Image Processing

[mikekm2B]

I have an ASUS TUF Gaming Plus, with 32 GB Ram running at 2133 Mhz and and a properly functioning MSI GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with up to date Windows 10 system that has NVidia Driver 456.71 installed on the GPU (by Windows 10 itself).  

I am using a Canon 6D with Canon 6D Raw Files.

I have Canon Digital Photo Professional version:  4.15.20.0 Installed.

When I process full size RAW files, and in Tools->Preferences->Image Processing 2-> check "Use Graphics Processor for Image Processing", 

then, for those images that I have significantly adjusted highlights, shadows, brightness color saturation (in other words I have made many significant adjustments to the raw file, then, when I close and open DPP again), THE TIME FOR THE DISPLAY  TO CHANGE FROM THE ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE TO THE ADJUSTED IMAGE CAN BE 5-7 SECONDS.   

When I UNCHECK that selection, close and open DPP again and RETURN TO PROCESSING WITH THE CPU THE LAG BETWEEN the display of the original Image and the edited one is NIL.  The image changes almost instantaneously.   

So, using the GPU, ostensibly for hardware GPU acceleration of image processing, GREATLY slows down image processing relative to the CPU.

I am using a modern Windows 10 system with 32 GB of RAM that runs at 2133 Mhz with an NVidia 2060 GPU that has NVidia Driver 456.71 installed (by Windows 10 itself).  

Does anyone know of the process to submit this to the Canon DPP software team?   

[ebiggs1]

I don't know the answer but I have seen a similar situation using Photoshop and the graphics accelerator. Sometimes it works or most of the time I guess but on some machines it does not. I know PS likes a huge scratch disk or swap file on a fast HD or better a SSD.  20GB is probably the minimum but if you make major edits you need several times  that amount. Not sure whether DPP4 benefits from that or not.

[mikekm2B]

ebiggs,

Thank you for your response.  I have 32GB of RAM, with a Ryzen 7 3700x and a 2060 GPU.  So, that should be more than plenty.   I have an SSD for "scratch" with Pshop but I assume that DPP would use the c: operating system drive for scratch if needed.

I will just keep using the DPP without pointing it at the GPU.  

[wq9nsc]

I have pretty much given up on Canon fixing DPP so that it utilizes the graphics processor.  Software is clearly not their strong suit, there have been minor and major glitches with DPP that have never been fixed which is a shame because overall it has some very strong features.

I use a pair of HP Z series workstations for photo and video processing (Z-820 and Z-840, both equipped with a pair of Intel Xeon CPUs and a pair of Nvidia workstation graphics cards) and I have never gotten any version of DPP to effectively utilize the GPUs.  Enabling them neither speeds up or slows down these workstations which are quite fast given their overall computing horsepower but the resources should be better utilized.

I edited a bunch of photos from a hall of fame induction ceremony along with two basketball games over this past weekend and the GPUs were basically idle during both editing and batch conversion to JPG operations using DPP.  When I rendered some 4K video down to HD in Corel video studio, that program made heavy use of the GPU.

Two persistent issues with DPP that have been going on for years is a "memory leak" during long editing sessions and the lack of GPU utilization and I have given up on Canon fixing either issue.  The workstations I use have 128 GB of RAM per CPU in one and 256 GB per CPU in the other so even with the memory leak, DPP never comes close to using more than a fraction of available memory but it does become noticeably slower as the memory used but not released increases and the fix is to exit and restart DPP every hour or so during extended editing sessions.

Rodger

[mikekm2B]

Rodger.

Thank you very much for your detailed and useful reply.   I use DPP instead of Photoshop (CS6) because it more ably edits the highlights and shadows and also more ably adjusts color hue and saturation, by color, than PShop.  Much better actually.

As far as I know, CS6 does not have the ability to access the GPU.  

So, I will just leave the reference setting to use the GPU in DPP off.  It works fine without that, although, converting to .jpg does take significant time.

Thanks again.  

[jrhoffman75]

This is what the DPP manual states:

Perhaps the initial delay is creating a full size preview that responds more quickly when doing subsequent previewing/image correction? Sort of like having Lightroom create full size previews intially which will then respond more quickly during editing?

"To display and work with photos, Lightroom requires a standard or 1:1 preview, depending on the task. If, upon import, you only tell Lightroom to generate Minimal or Embedded previews, Lightroom creates Standard and 1:1 previews automatically as you’re working in the application. This process hinders performance. To increase your productivity and reduce this disruption, manage when and how you render your 1:1 previews. Render them on import, or set aside time to render them manually."

In response to another posting one of the Canon folks stated that DPP creates full size previews when first opening a folder. He stated that is why it seems to take a long time for DPP to start up when selecting a folder with many files for the first time. Maybe the GPU speeds up that process. 

[mikekm2B]

John,

Thank you.   When I turn off GPU processing DPP, almost instantly, loads the adjusted image.  So, the use of the GPU definitely resultsin some kind of major slow down.  

But, another poster indicaes this is a long time problem so I will just leave that setting off.  

[NatalyaP]

Greetings, mikekm2B

I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing a performance issue when switching to using the dedicated GPU in your system to where the software is running faster when using the CPU only. You may check to see if there are any other applications that may be using the resources of your graphics card when using our software.

In the meantime, I've submitted your feedback to our software engineers. Any updates to the Digital Photo Professional 4 software that may become available will be posted on the software download page for your camera when it becomes available.

[mikekm2B]

JacobT,

Many, many thanks for reading my feedback and sending it on to the software team.   At the time that I am running Digital Photo Professional 4 there are no other applications in use.     Thank you.